Thursday, February 26, 2009

Jiu Jitsu of the Brazilians/8 days until NAGA

Thursday night class was run by lovable Chris Crampton and the Dawgfather when he finished kicking the MMA guys asses. I was like 15 minutes late due to work (I had to drive pretty much to Indiana and back). I was kind of tired from all the driving, and was worried I wasn't going to have a productive class.

Luckily my great instructors don't allow class not to be productive! I jumped right into cardio, where Chris had us running, shrimping, swimming, seal walking, and other crazy motions all over the mat.

Today we focused on passing half guard from the top. Crampton showed two of our main passes. The first being the "grind your head into the guys chin, prop up, get your knee through, and slide out" pass. The next was the "grab under the guys neck and give him the shoulder of pain while grabbing the guys knee and sliding you bottom knee into his ribs until you pull your leg out or he opens his guard up" pass. I know both these passes, but passing half guard on a good opponent is something I struggle with.

We got a chance for some dynamic repetition when we played the "groups of 3" game again. We did 10 minute rounds of having to pass the half guard from top. Every 30 seconds...fresh guy; you know the drill! I had the great Dan-O and Jorge in my group, so I knew I was in for no easy task. I went first at the 10 minutes was definitely challenging. I faired pretty well. I escaped a few times, but was close or bettered myself many times in the fight. A few times I got pwned, but what you gonna do?

After this drill we had a couple rounds of live rolling, finished up with a quick sprint, and that was all she wrote!

I weighed 191.4 after class, which puts me in good shape for weigh ins next friday. I'm entering the 180-189 blue belt and intermediate divisions.